NBC Poll: '2016 Field Is Crowded -- and Mostly Unpopular'

[Mr. Morden]

Positive/Negative ratings for the 2016ers from new NBC/Wapo poll

NBC/WSJ, not NBC/WaPo.

[Mr. Morden]

Positive/Negative ratings for the 2016ers from new NBC/Wapo poll

Among all respondents:

    Ben Carson 17%-7% (+10)

This poll proves once and for all that once you go black, you don't go back.

[Mr. Morden]

What we should be looking at two years from the election is not the polls but positives/negatives of candidates. Hillary has 40% negatives with 100% name recognition. Negatives stay. People who form a negative opinion about somebody will keep that negative opinion.

That's true.  That's why public figures with high name recognition never see their popularity change much over time.  E.g.:

[Mr. Morden]

What we should be looking at two years from the election is not the polls but positives/negatives of candidates. Hillary has 40% negatives with 100% name recognition. Negatives stay. People who form a negative opinion about somebody will keep that negative opinion.

That's true.  That's why public figures with high name recognition never see their popularity change much over time.  E.g.:

Why were her approvals so low in 2000?  Do we blame wives for he sex scandals of their husbands now? 

The Lewinsky scandal made her extremely popular (see the peak in 1999), but then that quickly faded, and her 2000 Senate race brought her back down to Earth.

Also, *favorability*, not approval.